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Monday, March 14, 2016

I have to share because it's just too beautiful not to! This is hanging in my school as a reminder to students on ways to live a respectful life. I did not make this at ALL, one of our amazing teachers did.

Monday, March 7, 2016

What I love so much about small groups is how different each one can be. All-girl groups, all boy groups, and co-ed groups- each one has its own unique personality that makes our time together memorable and always exciting!

I am working with a boys group right now that is very competitive and athletic to say the least! The main goal of our group is to work on healthy competition through communication skills and emotional maturity.

Ever since the day they got the permission slip for the group, they have been asking me (nonstop) when are we going to get to play a sport. I waited until we third week to announce we would be playing basketball. Little did they know this would be a different form a basketball, that would test their communication skills and understanding of one another.

Each student was given a card with directions on how to play the basketball game. They were not allowed to discuss their rule with anyone. The rules included:

You can only talk to people in an unfriendly tone

You can only whisper

You can only speak to people on the other team

Your arms will stay across the entire game

you cannot walk only running as fast as possible

you cannot speak or pass the ball to anyone on your team

It was amazing to see this social experiment unfold righ in front of my own eyes! We played 2 rounds of basketball. The first was with the rules, the second without. After we discussed how each person felt about each round.

I stressed the importance of body language and tone. While speaking to one another is a (small) part of the communication, the way we use our body and the tone in which we speak matter almost more than what we are saying!

It was such a wonderful lesson to them (and ME!), and I will definitely use it again in future groups.

Tuesday, March 1, 2016

If you are a counselor, you've probably seen the movie "Inside Out" by now and thought of a few ideas on ways to incorporate. Whether you like the movie or not, there are a few good takeaways that can help kids relate to their emotions.

One of my small group lessons focuses on self expression. It is an important tool for students to learn how to express themselves, and earlier we can teach the strategy, the better off the children will be in social situations.

I start by playing the trailer "get to know your emotions". Play the introduction of joy, fear, anger, disgust, and sadness. After we talk about each feeling and if anyone has ever experienced these feelings.

From there,we talk about how people let you know if they are feeling a certain way. They use words, their body language, and their tone. We practice body language by playing a game of charades-I typed out about 20 different feelings on the cards and have students draw a piece of paper out of a bag.

They love acting out the different emotions and guessing each one!

In a recent lesson, I had some extra time so I had students draw the face of different feelings. They were given six blank faces with hair, and a feeling written under each one. They were given five minutes to draw the 6 faces, and then we discussed how some people's "mad" looked similar and different from one another-it wasn't really neat activity and one that I will definitely do again!

Hopefully this gives you an idea of what to do with a few free trailers and your emotions:)